Seeing the node-red logs when running node-red-node-test-helper

General
1

As I build out a new set of contributed node implementations for Node-RED, I find myself using node-red-node-test-helper for the first time. I'm enjoying the function and all is well for the most part. I am gaining skills on the framework.

In one of my tests, I am invoking a flow and it is not working as expected. I feel that my flow and its corresponding custom node are being invoked but I get the feeling that my own code in my own node may be throwing an exception. This leads me to the question to be posed in this thread:

Is it possible to dump/log the messages generated by the execution of the flow that is invoked by node-red-node-test-helper?

In my test code I have:

const flow = [
  {
    "id": "n1",
    "type": "google-cloud-pubsub out",
    //"topic": "node-red-topic",
    "keyFilename": "/home/kolban/node-red/creds.json",
  }
];
helper.load(pubsubInNode, flow, () => {
  // At this point the flow is "running".  We now need to send in some data.
  const n1 = helper.getNode("n1");

  console.log('About to fire flow');
  n1.receive({payload: text});
  ...

When I call helper.load(), my supposition is that an instance of Node-RED (or some core of it) is loaded and the flow passed to it. If I were running Node-RED from the command line, I would be able to look at its logs. Is it possible to see the logs of Node-RED itself when launched from helper.load()?

1 Like
2

Soft bump ... I'm quite a fan of the node-red-node-test-helper framework but could really use some technique to see the underlying Node-RED logs when the framework runs flows.

3

You may need to bump it again on Wednesday when I'm back from holiday and can dig out the code to remember how to do this.

4

Bumping this as I am wondering the same thing :slight_smile:
Many thanks in advance.

1 Like
5

So what I found out was this

helper.load([scannerNode, statusBrokerNode], flow, function () {
  console.table(helper.log().args.map(e=>e[0]))
  console.log('Current Log messages (all levels)', helper.log().args)
  console.log('Current Log messages (fatal, error, warn, info)', helper.log().args.filter((event) => event[0].level >= 40))
  var sNode = helper.getNode('dxBarcodeScanner.1');
  sNode.should.have.property('name', 'barcode1');
  helper.settings({ });
  done();
});